Many years ago — long before I had children of my own — […]
Many years ago — long before I had children of my own — I was working as a retail manager for a large company. Every year, we’d have a conference for all the store managers to network and do management workshops and all that corporate stuff.
On my second year with the company, there was a a new store manager at the conference. (We’ll call her Lisa.) That wasn’t unusual — staff turnover was pretty high. But the weird thing was that everyone else seemed to know her.
Lisa was the life of the party. She was in her early bath faucetthirties, very attractive, kind and considerate, smart, and accomplished. I quickly learned that the reason everyone knew her was that she’d actually been a store manager for almost ten years, but she’d had the last two years off work.
As the two of us got to know each other, I innocently asked Lisa what she’d been doing for the last two years. She prevaricated, so I immediately changed the subject and asked about where she lived, what her hobbies were, and whether she had any children.
This beautiful woman immediately burst into tears and fled the room.
I felt terrible. I had no idea what I’d done, but I knew I’d said something that upset her.
I got the story from someone else.
Two years earlier, Lisa’s daughter had drowned in the bath.
The little girl was four years old. Almost five. She knew how to swim — in fact, they had a swimming pool and the little girl went swimming every day in summer. But she’d still drowned in the bath tub. In only a few inches of water.
It happened while Lisa was working late. Her motherFaucet Ceramic Cartridges Manufacturers was looking after her granddaughter. The little girl was in the bath when the grandmother realised there were no towels in the bathroom. She told her granddaughter that she’d be right back, and dashed out of the room to grab a clean towel from the linen cupboard.
She was gone maybe two or three minutes.
When she got back, her granddaughter was unconscious. She couldn’t be revived.
The best guess is that the little girl had stood up to reach a toy, slipped, and hit her head on the tap (faucet) when she fell. She was knocked unconscious and fell face first into the few inches of water. She drowned without regaining consciousness.
It was an accident. It was incredibly unlikely.And it was devastating.
Lisa never forgave herself for working late that night. Her mum never forgave herself for walking out of the bathroom, even for a couple of minutes.
This girl was four years old. She could swim. I know many people who would think she would be perfectly safe in a bathtub on her own. But accidents happen.
